Solution of Higher Education 


Program in New Mexico 


Fitz-Gerald 








DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
DURHAM, N. C. 








SOLUTION OF 


Higher Education 
Program in New 
Mexico 





Report fo Governor of New Mexico 
by Prof. John D. Fitz-Gerald 


University of Illinois 








E5535 
REPORT TO GOVERNOR 
of NEW MEXICO 


by 


: Prof. John D. Fitz-Gerald 


University of Illinois 





Y 
! A To His Excellence, O. A. Larrazolo, , 
The Capitol, 
; Santa Fe, New Mexico. 
Your Excellency: 


Somewhat over a year ago, following the 
first of the two Educational Conferences 
that it has been my privilege to conduct in 

New Mexico in the summers of 1919 and 

1920 (under the auspices of the American 
Association for International Conciliation), 

, you asked me to study as an outsider the 
problem of the higher education of New 

Mexico. I have been working thereon as 
opportunity permitted ever since and in an 

L interview that it was my privilege to have 
with you in July, 1920, I gave you a rough 
outline of the conclusions I had reached and 
you asked me to send them to you in detail. 
The purpose of this letter is to comply with 
that request. 


By higher education I have understood, 
for the purposes of my study, those institu: 
tions entrance to which is based upon a 
high school preparation and whose courses 
are four years in length, leading to some rec- 
ognized, academic degree, and in addition 
to those institutions all work beyond them 
which is usually connected with a graduate 
school of some kind. Obviously, therefore, 
what I have to say does not apply directly 
to your two normal schools: The New 
Mexico Normal University at East Las 
Vegas and the New Mexico State Normal 
School at Silver City, although each of them 
earries technical pedagogical work for two 
or more years beyond graduation from high 
school. Nor does it concern the New Mex- 


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ico Military Institute, which likewise has a 
course carrying the student two years be- 
yond graduation trom high school. 


INSTITUTIONS CONCERNED 


The institutions | have in mind are all 
those separate tacullies ‘or institutions in 
your state which eisewhere are grouped 
within the corporate body of Our great pri- 
vately endowed universities or our great 
state universities, as, tor example, the New 
Mexico State School of Mines at Socorro, 
the New Mexico College of Agriculture anu 
Mechanic Arts at State College, and the Uni- 
versity of New Mexico at Albuquerque. And 
what I say of these would apply equally to 
any other faculties that might later be estab- 
lished, such as a faculty of law or a faculty 
of medicine or a college of journalism or 
dentistry or pharmacy, etc. , 


STATE NOT WELL SERVED, SAYS _ 


It seems to me that under your present, 
method of procedure with the School of 
Mines and the College of Agriculture and 
Mechanic Arts and the University, so called, 
all appealing to the legislature separately 
and independently for appropriations, the 
State is not being served to the best possible 
advantage. Each of these institutions, and 
quite naturally and very properly as things 
now stand, tries to get from the State all 
the funds it can for its own development, 
without any regard whatever for the needs 
of the sister institutions. Furthermore, your 
State University as at present constituted, 
seems to consist of only two faculties: The 
College of Arts and Sciences and the College 
of Engineering, together with an embryonic 
graduate school]. A university in the nature 
of the case should consist of more faculties 
than that, and the force of your State Uni- 
versity is weakened by the absence from its 
jurisdiction of the other two schools that 
you have already established, namely, the 
School of Mines and the College of Agricul- 
ture and Mechanic Arts. 

DUPLICATION WASTE 


It would seem further, to an outsider, as 
though there must be a good deal of waste 
by duplication in the fact that your School 


of Mines and your College of Mechanic Arts 
and your College of Engineering, all of 
whose fields are so closely akin, are actually 
located in three different cities. 


My first set of recommendations then is 
as follows: 


Have the legislature pass a bill merging 
all these institutions as separate faculties 
of the State University, with one single 
Board of Trustees, who should be elected by 
popular vote. 


WOULD HAVE NINE TRUSTEES 


It would be well to have these Trustees 
nine in number, elected for six years and 
divided into three classes. Every two years 
one of these classes would retire from office, 
but its members individually could be re- 
elected. In each class there should be one 
woman representative. In addition to these 
nine elected members, you would probably 
find it desirable to have the following offi- 
cers serve ex-officio: The Governor of the 
State, the President of the State Board of 
Agriculture, and the Superintendent of Pub- 
lic Instruction, all of whom should be elected 
to their positions by popular vote. The offi- 
cers of the Board would be elected by the 
Board. This Board, and this Board only, 
should have the power of appointment for all 
members of the faculties, including the Pres- 
ident and the Deans. The Board should not, 
however, have the power of nomination for 
faculty members. Such nominations should 
come from the other experts on the faculty, 
(usually, but not necessarily, through the 
Deans) to the President, who would present 
them to the Board of Trustees. 


TO CO-ORDINATE NEEDS 


The various departments in each of the 
colleges would prepare their respective 
budgets and present them to the Dean of 
their college. The Dean would proceed to 
co-ordinate to the best of his ability these 
various departmental needs. The several 
Deans would then present their budgets to 
the President, who again would proceed 
with an attempt at co-ordination of the va- 
ried needs of the several colleges. This co- 
ordinated budget the President then would 


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present to the Board of Trustees, who would 
approve it, or amend it with a view to fur- 
ther co-ordination. This final budget, thus 
co-ordinated, would be presented to the leg- 
islators for approval and passing. 

In this unified budget it is evident that 
the element of waste by duplication, inev- 
itable in the system you now have, would 
be reduced to a minimum. 


WOULD MERGE ALL PHYSICAL PLANTS 


The full advantages of this unification of 
administration would be obtained, however, 
only when you would have likewise have 
merged the physical plants of all the schools 
concerned. Many of the results, however, 
can be obtained by the mere administrative 
unification and more will be obtained as the 
physical unification progresses. 


Possibly for climatic and soil reasons the 
College of Agriculture might have to be lett 
where it is, but I can see no reason why the 
other faculties, including that part of the 
College of Agriculture which is devoted to 
Mechanic Arts, should not be merged with 
the rest of the State University as speedily 
as the State can afford to make the physical 
transfer. And however expensive it may be 
at the present time to make that transfer, 
it should be borne in mind that it will 
always be more expensive to make it later 
on. 


Intimately connected with this question 
of the physical unification of the University 
is that of the place that should be selected 
for the University’s home. As an outsider, 
my judgment would be in favor of Santa Fe 
for the following reasons: 


SANTA FE CULTURAL CENTER 


Santa Fe seems to be the cultural center 
of the Southwest. It is a city permeated 
with memories of the past and has a cultural 
atmosphere that is comparable to some of 
the great cultural centers of Europe. While 
your state library is not very large, what 
there is of it is located in Santa Fe. Santa 
Fe is also the home of your two great his- 
torical museums which house the collections 
of the Historical Society of New Mexico, the 


_School. of American Archaeology, and. the 
New Mexico Museum of Arcnaeology. 


Concerning the general desirableness of 
Santa Fe as a place to live in, you are even 
better informed than I. Its lying off the 
main line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa 
Fe railroad should not be counted as a dis- 
advantage. Princeton University is similar- 
ly located with relation to the main line 
of the Pennsylvania railroad. Let me point 
out, too, that the near proximity of the 
Pecos Forest Reserve would not be espe- 
cially disadvantageous to a forestry school, 
if the University should ever develop such 
a school. 


For all these reasons and several others 
that you can readily imagine, I should rec- 
ommend the immediate transfer of the pres- 
ent State University (with the College of 
Arts and Sciences, its College of Engineer- 
ing, and its embryonic graduate school) from 
Albuquerque to Santa Fe. 


While I do not know the reasons that led 
to the University’s being established at Al- 
buquerque, I do know that during the sum. 
mer I read an editorial news item in one of 
the Albuquerque papers in which it was 
stated that a number of the leading citizens 
‘of that city had come to the conclusion that 
if it were best for the state to have the 
State University located. somewhere else, 
they were willing to have it so located. 


OUTSIDER’S VIEWPOINT 


As an outsider looking at the matter pure- 
ly from the point of view of what will make 
the University most serviceable to the State, 
it seems to me that the reasons I have 
given for the immediate transfer of this 
part of the Ultimate State University to 
Santa Fe are entirely sound. As one who 
studied in some of the foremost universities 
of the world (Columbia, Leipzig, Berlin, 
Paris and Madrid) and who has visited many 
other universities equally: famous (Yale, 
Princeton, Pennsylvania, John MHopkins, 
‘Trinity College, Dublin, Oxford, Leiden, 
Heidelberg, Jena, Bonn, Bordeaux, Zaragoza, 
Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Salamanca, 
Buenos Aires, La Plata, Montevideo, Santi- 
ago de Chile, and San Marcos of Lima), I 


know what it means for a student to be 
making his studies in a place that has an 
atmosphere of its own and that is permeated 
with memories of the past, while possessed 
of a spirit that is looking eagerly toward 
the future. All of this your students would 
have if your University were located at 
Santa Fe. 


e 

Under separate cover I am sending to you 
for your further information, a copy of the 
laws of the United States and the State of 
Illinois, concerning the University of Illi- 
nois. For the same reason I am sending you 
a copy of a Report of a Special Senate Com- 
mittee authorized February 6, 1911. “To 
make a thoro investigation of * * * organiza- 
tion and efficiency of the University, with 
a view to drafting ultimately a constitution 
for the University of Illinois.” This report 
has never been adopted, but the several fac- 
ulties concerned took it up part by part and 
reported their several judgments on the 
various phases thereof that most intimately 
concerned them. I am enclosing a copy of 
those reports. 

The copy of the Senate Committee Report 
that I am sending to you I have amended in 
all points where the Senatesin considering 
both sets of reports actually reached a deci- 
sion. I trust you will find these reports 
helpful and suggestive in drafting your new 
State law and your new constitution for the 
new University of New Mexico, which shall 
combine under one administration all of 
your institutions of higher learning except 
the two normal schools and military insti- 
tution. 


If you are able to develop at this reor- 
ganized State University good strong cour- 
ses in the liberal arts and sciences leading 
respectively to the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts and Bachelor of Sciences (according as 
the student shall have taken the majority of 
his work in the liberal arts or in the scien- 
ces), I should strongly recommend that in 
the further interests of avoiding waste by 
duplication your two normal schools be dis- 
couraged from carrying their work further 
than two years beyond high school gradu‘- 
tion. At the same time those of their stu- 
dents who wish to go on for their bachelor’s 


degree in arts or in sciences should be en- 
couraged to do so by having it understood 
that tne University wili accept their two 
years o: Normal College work on a Liat basis 
or one-half of all the work required tor the 
respective bachelor’s degree, upon the un- 
derstanding, of course, that the University 
shall convince itself periodically that the 
Normal Colleges in those two years oi work 
are maintaining proper collegiate standards. 
A concrete exampie will serve to show you 
what I mean in this last respect. While J 
know nothing of the actual standards of the 
New Mexico Normal School, i do know that 
the New Mexico Normal University is main- 
taining a two-year normal course of standard 
grade; and | know it for the reason that a 
year ago a graduate of the New Mexico 
Normal University was admitted to Junior 
standing in the University of California as 
a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts. 


If for any reason there be undue delay in 
thus reorganizing your State University and 
in developing strong curricula therein lead- 
ing to the respective degrees of Bachelor of 
Arts and Bachelor of Sciences, as indicated 
above, then it would probably be advisable 
to encourage your two Normal Schools at 
East Las Vegas and at Silver City to develop 
such curricula for themseives. They al- 
ready possess some of the machinery 
therefor. 


If there is any other respect in which I 
can be of service to your Excellency I beg ~ 
you to command me; and I wish to assure 
you that my two summers of teaching in 
your state and mingling with your people 
have given me a very real interest in your 
educational affairs. 

With great respect, I have the honor, Sir, 
to be 


Your obedient servant, 
(Signed) JOHN D. FITZ-GERALD. 
September 1, 1920. 


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